Jonathan Agnew & the brilliance of Test Match Special

The editor of Cricket Statistician analyses the week’s events

This seems to be turning into the year of the young English batsman. Ben Duckett (220 not out) and Daniel Bell-Drummond (171 not out) have just added an unbeaten 367 for England Lions against Sri Lanka A.

Duckett had already made 163 not out against Pakistan A, Dawid Malan (a little older at 28) 185 not out in the first match against Sri Lanka A, and Sam Billings 175 against Pakistan A at the first attempt.

Duckett’s score is the highest in a List A match in England since Ali Brown’s incredible 268 for Surrey against Glamorgan in 2002.

The highest ever score for England in a full one-day international is 167 by Robin Smith against Australia in 1993 (though, of course, Jason Roy – scarcely out of the “promising” class himself – has scored 162 this year in a ODI against Sri Lanka).

Red ball cricket has seen the same, since Duckett’s very early 282 not out against Sussex, with the 19-year-old Aneurin Donald’s recent 234 from 136 balls for Glamorgan against Derbyshire (in which he equalled the fastest-ever 200 from 123 balls) merely the latest and most sensational.

Sam Northeast and Brett D’Oliveira have also played very substantial innings in the County Championship.

Nick Gubbins of Middlesex, too, has a double century to his name this year.

Jack Leaning of Yorkshire made 131 not out in a List A game the other day while Liam Livingstone of Lancashire is another highly promising young batsman in the Lions team.

So is it a new golden age for English batting (or to put it another way, why are James Vince and Gary Ballance still hanging on in the Test team?).

There must be caveats. Most pitches this season have been suffocatingly bland and graveyards for bowlers; some of these runs have been made against second division attacks that are looking second rate.

There have been 18 first-class 200s so far this season. There were three in 2015.

One might remember, too, that three years ago Dominic Sibley, just over 18, scored a double century against Yorkshire, making him the youngest in Championship history, and the second youngest in English first-class cricket after WG Grace, who at 18 years and 12 days in 1866 made 224 not out for England against Surrey.

Sibley is still under 21 but has only recently been re-appearing to any regular extent in Surrey’s team this year after two years of modest performances.

A career in cricket these days is not so well paid or so secure as to keep those players whose careers stall.

You may remember Barney Gibson, keeping wicket for Yorkshire in 2011 at 15 years of age, and now out of the first-class game.

Or Michael Bates, of Hampshire, rated by some as the best wicketkeeper in England, out of the first-class game at 24 and playing for Wiltshire.

Surely, though, some of this year’s young guns will go on to make it.